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Vodafone, one of India’s leading telecommunications service providers, is planning to invest around Rs 13,000 crore for capacity augmentation and new business initiatives. This significant investment was committed by Mr. Vittorio Colao, Vodafone Group Plc‘s CEO, in his meeting with the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi in London.

Since starting operations in India in 2007, Vodafone has already invested over Rs 111,000 crore and contributed over Rs 100,000 crore to the exchequer and is today the largest FDI investor in the country.

Colao said, “At Vodafone, we are enthused with the PM’s vision for ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’. Vodafone India serves over 188 million citizens, of which almost 100 million are from rural areas. As the co-creator of the telecom ecosystem, a catalyst of the telecom revolution in India and being committed for the long term, we are ideally poised to partner the Government of India in fulfilling these important initiatives. We are pleased to announce our enhanced commitment to India through this series of significant further investments.”

The planned capacity expansions and investments in the high-end technology centre and the customer service centres will create opportunities for employment and for skilling and training India’s rich talent pool.

Vodafone will accordingly increase its staffing levels to 15,000 employees over the next two years. Vodafone’s India business, in addition to being the highest contributor to Vodafone Group’s service revenue growth, has the largest customer base (188 million customers), is the largest data traffic market (by volume) and the third largest contributor to Vodafone Group’s service revenues.